Colin was Shane’s stunt double—yet another person whose job it was to look vaguely like Shane. On the days that all three of them were on set, it was a little uncanny. When he’d found out that Colin and Dean had an occasional friends-with-benefits arrangement, Shane had been slightly unnerved, unsure if it crossed the line into pseudo-incest or was just regular narcissism.
Shane unwrapped the first of his tacos. “Oh yeah? Is that back on?”
Dean shrugged, leaning over to grab a few tortilla chips from the bag. “He was seeing someone for a while, but I guess it’s over.”
Shane’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. He shifted to the side to pull it out.
“Mind if I take this? It’s Renata.”
Dean shook his head, muting the television. Shane answered the call and put it on speaker, setting the phone down on the table as he wiped his hands on a napkin.
“Hey, Renata.”
“Hi, angel. Where are you? Can you talk?”
“Yeah, I’m just here with Dean.”
“Hi, Renata,” Dean drawled in a singsong voice. “My offer’s still on the table, by the way.”
“What, to marry you and take you away from all this? Forgive me for not jumping at the chance,” Renata said dryly.
“Your loss. I’d make a great househusband. Just say the word.”
Renata chuckled. Shane had asked her years ago if she wanted him to tell Dean to cut out the flirting, but she’d waved him aside. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, but other than that, her personal life was something of a mystery to him, as was her age—she could’ve been anywhere from forty to seventy. But if it didn’t bother her, it didn’t bother Shane, and it always stayed playful enough that they both seemed to be having fun.
Shane tried to steer the conversation back on track. “So what’s up?”
“They want you and Lilah for the cover ofReel’s big fall TV preview issue. It shoots two weekends from now.”
“That’s great,” Shane said weakly.
Dean snorted. “They probably can’t Photoshop him into that one, huh?”
“Well, that’s the other thing. My impression is that they want the shoot to be a little…risqué. How do you feel about showing some skin?”
Dread brewed in the pit of his stomach. “How much skin?”
“As much as they can get away with without having to sell it in a brown paper bag, from the sound of it. Are you okay with that? Do you need me to make a stink? Because I’ll make a stink.”
Shane stared down at his taco, feeling Dean’s eyes on him.
“No. No, it’s no problem.”
“Great. Better start doing your planks now.”
Dean groaned, swiping the bag of tortilla chips out of Shane’s reach entirely. “He always gets so grumpy when he’s dieting.”
“Maybe you can tag along, Dean, and they can superimpose your abs onto his body.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been thinking about my abs again,” Dean replied with a grin.
Shane cracked a smile, too, despite himself. “I don’t think we need to go that far. They can do amazing things with makeup these days. I’ll just get them painted on.”
Renata laughed again. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll let them know you’re up for it.”
When Shane hung up, Dean turned the volume back up on the television, and the two of them sat in silence that bordered on uncomfortable. Lilah had been a touchy subject ever since the season-five wrap party—the last time Shane had seen her until upfronts. The night that had shown him once and for all what kind of person she was.
It was obvious they were both thinking about it. Shane considered saying something, but the idea of hashing it all out again this long after the fact felt both exhausting and unnecessary. He wasn’t really the confrontational type, anyway, especially when it came to Dean. Even though he was pushing thirty, Dean was still the baby of the family, and no matter how annoyed Shane got with him, his protective instinct always won out.
